John M. Olin Institute for Strategic Studies :: Harvard University

The MESH roundtable on the theme of “The First 100 Days” continues. MESH members have been asked these questions: What priorities should the next administration set for immediate attention in the Middle East? What should it put (or leave) on the back burner? Is there anything a new president should do or say right out of the gate? And if a president asked you to peer into your crystal ball and predict the next Middle East crisis likely to sideswipe him, what would your prediction be?

MESH members’ answers are appearing in installments throughout the week. (Read the whole series here.) Today’s responses come from Robert O. Freedman, Chuck Freilich, and Adam Garfinkle.

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Robert O. Freedman :: When the new administration takes office on January 20, it will face four Middle Eastern challenges: (1) preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons; (2) restoring U.S. credibility in the Arab-Israeli conflict; (3) actively engaging Syria in the Syrian-Israeli peace process; and (4) diminishing U.S. dependence on energy imports from the volatile Middle East, as well as from other uncertain suppliers such as Nigeria and Venezuela.

1. Iran. A nuclear-armed Iran would pose a danger not only to the United States but to American allies in the Persian Gulf and to Israel. While diplomacy has been the preferred alternative for dealing with Iran, despite occasional bellicose verbiage from the Bush administration, so far neither the European Union, nor the International Atomic Energy Agency, nor the UN Security Council has succeeded in getting the Iranian regime to stop its program of nuclear enrichment. Under the circumstances, the new U.S. administration should actively consider the military option, which would involve using U.S. air and missile assets to destroy Iranian nuclear installations. Destroying these installations would be a major political blow to rising Iranian political influence in the Middle East, as well as a significant blow to Iran’s military capabilities.

2. The Arab-Israeli conflict. Beginning in 2001, a number of illegal Jewish settlement outposts were established in the West Bank by Israeli settlers. Successive Israeli governments have vowed to remove the outposts, as part of the on-going Israeli-Palestinian peace process, but have failed to do so. The Bush administration has failed to pressure Israel to uproot these outposts, which are seen by most Arabs—and especially the Palestinians—as a process of expanding existing Israeli settlements on the West Bank and thereby seizing territory which the Palestinians want for their independent state. The new U.S. administration must pressure Israel to do what it has already promised to do—that is, uproot the outposts. If the post-Olmert Israeli government fails to do so, the new administration should consider financial sanctions against Israel until it complies. Such an action would do much to restore U.S. credibility in the Arab world while not affecting Israel’s basic security requirements.

3. Syria. In recent years, the Syrian regime of Bashar Asad has hinted that it was willing to make peace with Israel, if Israel returned the Golan Heights and went back to the pre-1967 war boundaries. The question perplexing many Israelis is whether Syria is serious about peace, or whether it is just using its peace offer to improve ties with the United States. The Bush administration has chosen not to engage Syria in the peace talks, but the new administration should do so. Whether Syria would be willing to cut its ties to Hezbollah and Iran as part of a peace settlement is a very open question, but the new administration should test Syria to see if it is willing to do so. If Syria were to cut ties to Iran and Hezbollah, there would be a major transformation of the current Middle Eastern balance of power, both in America’s favor and in Israel’s. Consequently, whether or not the U.S. engagement with Syria turns out to be successful, it is definitely worth the effort.

4. Energy. Since the Arab oil embargo of 1973, U.S. dependence on foreign oil has jumped from one-third to two-thirds of total U.S. oil consumption of 20 million barrels per day, and much of this oil comes from undependable import sources such as Saudi Arabia, Nigeria and Venezuela. Despite a good bit of verbiage, successive U.S. governments have done very little to reverse the trend of ever-increasing oil imports. There are a number of steps that the United States should take to reverse this negative trend—first and foremost, to consider energy issues as national security issues, rather than as primarily economic ones. Specific steps to be taken include the following:

Double the fuel efficiency requirements for all cars built in the United States over a period of five years.

Massively increase subsidies for solar and wind power projects.

Upgrade the national electricity grid and build additional lines to link wind and solar power sites to population centers.

Undertake a major effort to produce oil products from non-food sources such as switchgrass, and from non-vital food sources such as sugarcane (as Brazil does).

Establish a crash program for the gasification and liquefaction of coal, America’s most abundant energy source, with due respect to environmental concerns such as carbon. Such an effort should be coordinated with China, another country rich in coal, which is already surpassing the United States as the leading world polluter.

See it through in Iraq. A relative success is within your grasp, with vital ramifications for U.S. policy throughout the region. Maintain a robust military presence for the long haul, but as troops are withdrawn, maintain strong economic and political involvement to help ensure that Iraq is a moderate, pro-American force in the region.

Engage rogues, but carry a big stick. Engagement need not deteriorate into appeasement; it is in your hands. You will get nowhere with the rogues without a stick, but a carrot is also needed.

Iran’s nuclear programmust be stopped. The only question is how: engagement if possible, military action if necessary. Make engagement one of your first initiatives, to see if Iran is incontrovertibly aggressive, but with a clear price tag. This will probably fail, but only after trying will you be able to take the tougher measures required. Try to get Russia on board by ending gratuitous friction over outdated policies such as NATO enlargement and the anti-missile system, but prepare the ground for major extra-UN sanctions. Make it clear to all that the United States will go it alone if they do not cooperate. If real sanctions fail—and time is short—impose a naval blockade. Discount the doomsayers who warn of a severe Iranian response to a blockade, let alone to an attack. Iran can inflict pain, but its options against the United States are limited.

Give Syria a chance. Decades of containment have failed because Syria was only interested in what the United States could not offer: the Golan. But Bashar may finally be seeking a rapprochement. Anything that can be done to weaken the Syria-Iran-Hezbollah axis should be pursued. Prepare for another round between Israel and Hezbollah.

Go slow on the Palestinian issue. Resist the advice of the “peace professionals” and old Washington hands to jump into the process. Bush stayed away for good reason: there is little the United States can do. Mahmoud Abbas is well meaning but speaks for no one. Try and help him postpone the elections in January and provide some tangible benefits to help maintain his rule, but prepare for a Hamas president and for internecine Palestinian violence and Palestinian-Israeli violence. If Binyamin Netanyahu is elected, forget major progress. If Tzipi Livni gets the brass ring, you definitely have with whom to work, which brings us back to the Palestinians’ disarray. Be prepared to focus on conflict management, not resolution.

Keep an eye on Egypt. The succession to Mubarak is likely during your first term. If neither his son nor a general from the junta takes over, Egypt could go Islamic. There is little the United States can do, but this would be a nightmare.

Strengthen ties with Turkey, which will have increasing importance for almost all U.S. interests in the region. Turkey is there for the losing, needlessly.

Democratization is good—selectively. Regional democratization is not going to happen. The United States cannot truly affect it, and it could undermine regimes in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan. Pursue democratization wherever doable without adversely affecting vital U.S. interests, primarily in Iran and some small Gulf and Maghreb states.

You will have a problem in and with the Middle East. That essence of the problem is simple to state: the Middle East does not exist.

We live at a time when causal connections between the region and the rest of world are more important than causal connections within it. This fact alone increases the usual level of uncertainty with which we must deal: Middle Eastern reality consists of more and different kinds of moving parts than it used to, and this puts added stress on a U.S. foreign policy decision structure not designed for such circumstances.

Three examples: Sources of and resources for Islamist terrorism flow back and forth among Europe, Southeast Asia and even Latin America as well as within the Middle East. The role of Middle Eastern oil and gas cannot be understood in isolation from broader pipeline geopolitics, global financial conditions and our own domestic policy choices. The Iranian nuclear challenge is a potential game-changer far beyond the Middle East, for it functions as a platform that a revanchist Russia can mount to bring countervailing pressure against the United States on a larger strategic canvas.

Meanwhile, linkages within the region are routinely exaggerated. The idea that solving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is the key to settling other Middle Eastern problems is widely believed, but wrong. The idea that whatever happens in Iraq will ramify mightily throughout the Arab world is widely believed, but overwrought.

You will be told you need an integrated strategy for the Middle East. Not so. You need a coherent statecraft (by definition, integrating foreign and domestic policy) for the world based on core U.S. interests. The Middle East is an important—but not necessarily the most important—component in that statecraft, but regional policies must always flow from national strategy, never the other way around.

That said, here’s what to do (or avoid doing) in the 100 days after the Inauguration:

Do not announce a “policy review.” This will communicate irresolution to determined adversaries and worried clients, both in and beyond the region.

Avoid any optic of defeat in Iraq. The global consequences for our reputation would be devastating. That does not require maximizing U.S. military activity or too rapidly ending it; it does require talking about a morning for sovereign Iraq rather than an evening for the U.S. military mission.

Hammer out in private with our allies trade and financial sanctions with real teeth against Iran in return for a pledge not to use force for at least a year. Say nothing in public, in light of tumultuous Iranian political circumstances. Let Iran propose engagement as the sanctions draw blood.

Name a prestigious, politically shrewd Special Envoy for Arab-Israeli Affairs who understands the poor prospects for quick significant progress. This will mute the braying of many donkeys and mules, get the portfolio off your desk, and purchase some equity with (and leverage against) several Arab states for later use..